P. Deutermann - The Last Man

“Charge? You misrepresented yourself and the true nature of your so-called project. The government made special accommodation for you, and you took advantage of them. Us. The IAA may not take that as lightly as you do, Mr. Hall.”

Her expression and tone of voice revealed that the “us” was just as angry with him as the government might be. Misrepresented myself, he had thought. Jesus. If they only knew.

“Well, again I apologize,” he said, “but I did no real harm up there. Hell, you let me wander around up there unattended all day on Thursday.”

“That was different. The security staff was in place. There were people about. If something had happened to you, there would have been help available. But to be wandering around out in the wadis at night, climbing that ramp, even walking the casemate walls in the dark — there are no railings, remember? Four hundred meters straight down? And that patrol: You were very, very lucky there.”

“So what’s next?” he replied, tiring of the harangue, trying hard to ignore the ass-kicking his conscience was all too ready to hand him.

“That will be up to the committee and the IAA. I suspect that if you want to play tourist next week, they will not object, as long as you are supervised by an approved tour operator. However, you are no longer welcome in official Israel, Mr. Hall.”

He had tried to think of some smart reply, couldn’t, and just nodded instead. He got out of the car and grabbed his gear from the backseat and put it down on the sidewalk. He stuck his head back into the car window.

“Well, so long, Mrs. Ressner. Despite the way it ended, it was still a pleasure to know you. Good luck with the rest of your life.”

He frowned now as he remembered the vexed expression that crossed her face when he made that last comment. Shit. Well, remember what you’re here for, he reminded himself, for the umpteenth time. Focus. Think about this: If they were pissed at your taking a walk at night, they’ll go positively ape-shit when they find out what you’re planning next. They damn well better not find out about that.

That thought led to the consideration of next moves: If he was lucky, they would not throw him out of the country. They would check the site to be sure there were no signs of digging or missing artifacts. They might detect the missing building stones, but he doubted it. He also doubted they would go down into the rim cisterns: Nobody had been in there but the bats for a long time. Besides, as far as the archaeologists were concerned, the cisterns were all just dry holes. Hell, that reeking pile of bat guano he had put by the cave entrance ought to do the trick if nothing else.

On the other hand, after this “incident,” whoever had sent the watcher at the airport might just keep him under surveillance here in Tel Aviv for a couple of days. Just to make sure. The Ministry of the Interior owned the archaeological sites, through the Israel Antiquities Authority. The ministry probably had ties to state security organizations. He thought about the guy in the airport. Maybe he was overdoing this — it was more likely that the guy in the airport was just another layer of airport security.

So: Today he would hole up, recovering his energy after the busy nights down on the mountain. Saturday meant Shabbat until sunset, so the country was essentially shut down anyway. Sunday things would be open again. He had his hired car and Ari turned back on, starting tomorrow. He would go over to Yafo Sunday morning to the dive shop and get set up for the expedition to Caesarea Maritima. Monday he would go make the first tour dive. Monday afternoon, he would drive around, see some other sites, and watch his back. He needed to convince any watchers that he had reverted to being boy tourist, going diving up on the coast in the mornings and touring the historical sites in the afternoons. No longer interested in things archaeological, and certainly not in Masada.

He would also spend some time here at the hotel, ostensibly transcribing notes from his trip down to the fortress. If they were really mad at him and got, say Shabak into it, they might even search his room. He should probably provide opportunities for anyone who might be interested to take a look into his computer. After recording the dimensions of the hidden cave in an otherwise innocuous file, he had erased all the seismic data files and even the program that computed the display. He would make a bunch of notes in a clearly labeled directory and then leave the computer unattended in the room. Just for the hell of it, he decided to activate a counter routine in the boot files that would tell him if the machine had been turned on in his absence. He would trash the four geophones, the data concentrator, and the wire today, which would eliminate all physical traces of the seismic survey. The devices were excess baggage now that he had confirmed there was another cistern and had found the way into it.

His diving gear, which now he needed in earnest, would also be on prominent display. Well, he was going to do some diving, right? Assuming he was going to be watched, the trick was to live the cover story, building up a pile of evidence to support it. From years of reading cloak-and-dagger books, he knew that if one wanted to get out from under a surveillance operation, the best way was to ensure that the watchers’ logbooks became filled with perfectly ordinary entries. The objective was to shape the outcome of the meeting at which the watchers decide whether or not to continue the surveillance: the cost of overtime personnel versus what the surveillance reports were indicating. Give them nothing out of character to hang their hats on. Theories were theories; budgets were real. Get them to say the hell with it and go on to something else.

Then, of course, the hard part: deciding when the surveillance had been called off, so he could make his move. Two days? Three days? Assuming someone even gave a damn about David Hall, scuba tourist. He might be wrong about this, but better safe than sorry, considering the magnitude of what he was planning next.

He went back in to shower, shave, and mentally massage his new plan. He would arrange three days of dives, starting Monday. While playing tourist, he would surreptitiously arrange to rent a four-wheel-drive vehicle and some basic camping gear. Tuesday, same routine: morning dive, tourist ops in the afternoon. On Wednesday he would call into the dive shop, tell them he wasn’t feeling well. Cancel Wednesday’s dive. He would collect the rental car and his gear at midday and then make a late afternoon trip back down the Dead Sea road to the vicinity of the mountain. His objective would be to avoid detection long enough to get himself in position to make one more night expedition to the fortress. He would need to set up a base of operations. Maybe use the rim cistern itself?

The logistics would be daunting. He needed to think about that aspect some more. Humping all that heavy diving gear up the mountain would be really hard, not to mention evading the damn patrols. That sergeant had probably had his ass chewed for not catching him the first time, although thankfully no one had asked him if there had been a first time. Judith had figured it out, though, hadn’t she?

Then there would be the matter of actually making the dive. The thought of that one curled his hair a little bit. He would be breaking every fundamental rule of diving: You never go down at night; you never go down alone or at least without surface backup; you never go into something without having the first damned idea of what’s down there — how big it really is, how deep, what the water temperature is… all fundamental stuff. It would also be cave diving, the most dangerous kind of diving. He’d read books about it, and at the end of each one he’d sworn he’d never even try that.